Adeline van Waning's Articles on Lions Roar

Adeline Van Waning, a psychiatrist and Buddhist practitioner, takes us inside a groundbreaking study that explores the effects of meditation on the brain and one’s overall well-being. When I first heard of the Shamatha Project, I felt like some of my deep longings were coming together. For quite some time I had wanted to participate in a meditation retreat that lasted several months. Combining this with cognitive and affective neuroscience and psychological research offered an extra dimension for me as a psychiatrist, and an opportunity to participate in contemplative history in the making. The ad said, “Meditate to advance science—be part of this groundbreaking neuroscience research project exploring the relationship between meditation and well-being.” I was selected and in September of 2007 found myself sitting in a shrine room with twenty-nine others, surrounded by colorful thangkas. We were quickly immersed in Buddhist perspectives and meditation instructions from the Tibetan tradition, and within a few days we were also thrown into the language and agency of Western science—measuring our skin resistance and hormone levels, and meditating with EEG (electroencephalogram) caps on our heads. The Shamatha Project included two three-month retreats, with state-of-the-art scientific measures, in a randomized wait-list control study. This meant that during the first retreat, while the research team studied the trainees, measurements were also done on the members of the control group, who were not meditating during this period. The members of the control group became the trainees for the second retreat. I was in this group, with fifteen other women and fourteen men. The ongoing project, a joint enterprise of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, the University of California at Davis, and Shambhala Mountain Center, was initiated by B. Alan Wallace and Clifford Saron. Wallace, who lived as a Tibetan Buddhist monk for fourteen years and then studied physics and religious studies, was our meditation teacher. Saron, a neuroscientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, coordinated the research team, which consists of more than thirty interdisciplinary investigators. Shamatha Meditation Practices. Shamatha, referring to meditative quiescence, tranquillity, or calm meditation, is considered an indispensable foundation for the cultivation of contemplative insight, or vipashyana. Shamatha training cultivates relaxation, attentional stability, and vividness of perception, and can be done in structured ways that do not demand allegiance to any religious or philosophical beliefs. These practices therefore lend themselves well to scientific investigation. The meditations we practiced were drawn from the Theravada and Mahayana traditions and involved directing the attention in three domains: mindfulness of the body, with various breathing meditations; “settling the mind in its natural state”; and “shamatha without a sign,” or awareness of awareness. Summarized by Wallace as “soothing the body, settling the mind, and illuminating awareness,” these practices were complemented with the four qualities of the heart (loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity), and tonglen, the Mahayana practice of giving and taking. The retreats were at the remote Shambhala Mountain Center, which rests in a mountain valley of pine forests and alpine meadows in the Colorado Rockies at an elevation of eight thousand feet. Founded by the late Chögyam Trungpa, it is part of the international network of Shambhala meditation centers now led by his son Sakyong Mipham. Summers are generally dry and sunny at this altitude, but temperatures may drop below freezing at any time of the year—and so they did while we were there, down to minus four Fahrenheit, producing sparkling rows of icicles hanging from the roofs. Our building had a meditation hall and a room where we ate our meals, as well as two psychophysiology field labs, a gym, and a room used for daily yoga sessions led by one of the participants. No other people were allowed in the building, and everyone was committed to silence, which permeated the entire retreat center and program. Meditation was our main daily activity, varying from five to ten hours a day for each participant, and it took place in different contexts. As a group we had two daily sessions with Alan Wallace: a thirty-minute session in the morning on the four qualities of the heart and tonglen, and, at 5 p.m., a thirty-minute practice period focusing on one of the shamatha attention meditations, followed by one hour of questions and answers, sharing, and dharma talk. I loved the contrast to silence that these lively and inspiring exchanges provided. In the first few weeks Wallace gave guided meditations, rotating the practice every couple of days. For example, we were guided in breath meditations that focused on the tactile sensations of the breath in the whole body for two or three days, then two days with focus in the abdomen, followed by another two days with focus at the nostrils. Next we did two days of “settling the mind in its natural state,” then two days of awareness of awareness, and back to breath again. After a complete round, a new round followed. Later we practiced more in silence, without guided meditation. In addition, each of us had a weekly fifteen-minute interview with Wallace. Most of us meditated in our rooms, though some shared a few sessions a day in the meditation hall. We took care of all the washing up and cleaning of the building in rotating work assignments. Going for a crisp walk over the Shambhala grounds, and hiking through the valley and surrounding mountains could be part of our program, and many of us did this every day. Another daily event was, in the evening, filling in the seven-page Daily Experience Questionnaire for the research. In this questionnaire, specially designed for this retreat, we logged forms and duration of meditation, health, moods and feelings, important experiences and insights, and dreams. This was quite a task, a daily awareness practice in itself. Collecting the Scientific Data. Neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to form new connections between neurons, is astounding. Training in any field, such as music or sports, can significantly alter connections among neurons and modify the brain systems devoted to particular tasks. Recent studies are adding meditation to the list of training techniques that can potentially change the brain in beneficial ways. While many meditation studies have been done with seasoned monks and nuns, the Shamatha Project is a significant addition to a growing number of studies on ordinary people who live active lives in society. The project is unique in that it uses an exceptionally broad range of measures. The research questions for the project, outlined on the Santa Barbara Institute website, included the following: “What measurable changes in attentional ability occur as a function of intensive meditation training? What are the neural correlates of these changes and the range of their consequences? Is it true, as Buddhist contemplatives claim, that improvements in the voluntary control of attention and associated improvements in attention systems in the brain make it easier to recognize and overcome negative emotions, maintain resilience in the face of stress, and improve relationships with other people? Do the changes persist after meditation trainees return from the retreat experience to the cacophony of everyday life in a modern society?” The scientists hypothesized that three months of shamatha training, combined with cultivation of the four qualities of the heart, would result in improved attentional performance (vigilance, selectivity, and meta-cognitive control), as well as greater compassion, security, and ability to better regulate negative emotions. Measurements were done at the beginning, middle, and end of the three-month periods, each time for a period of two days. The study combined third-person research (looking at objective measures, from the outside) with first-person research (the way an individual subjectively experiences things as “I”). Thesecond-person perspective (someone else’s view of the participant) was represented by Wallace’s impressions during his weekly interviews with each of us, as well as impressions of the video-interviewer. In addition, follow-up interviews with individuals close to the participants are planned. Quantitative (third-person) measures of the project included well-known objective paradigms in cognitive and affective neuroscience, stress and affiliation-related biomarkers, EEG data, autonomic nervous system physiology, and the recording of facial expressions of emotion. We were also hooked up to the EEG machine when we meditated while listening to Wallace’s recorded instructions on breathing meditation, and when practicing compassion and loving-kindness meditation according to meditation research protocols. Blood tests included hormone factors (like oxytocin, associated with social bonding and attachment) and cytokine IL-6, giving an indication of immune function. The stress hormone cortisol was obtained from saliva samples. Certain white blood cells were examined for telomerase, an enzyme essential for maintaining the ends of chromosomes so DNA replication can continue. From this research, scientists can investigate connections between molecular biology and psychology. There were first-person components such as self-reporting, structured interviews, and daily journaling. First-person experiences for me included what it was like to be filling in lots of attention and psychology tests, letting myself be pierced for vials of blood, spitting saliva into tubes, discussing my personal experiences on video and audio, and in a diary. The measures used were, in part, well-known mainstream tests, which made comparison with other research possible. But hardly any...

Inside the Shamatha Project

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